Feature Set:  

To build your email contact list, first create an interest category, then you can populate it with your email list. This part of the list creation is very simple. You can either manually input all your contacts or import them.

With Constant Contact you can easily import your mailing list using Excel, Outlook Outlook Express and a common comma separated values (.csv) file. Additionally, you can customize your demographics by filtering your contacts according to various attributes.

Constant Contact also has the ability to adjust aliases, or change who the email message is from in the “from” box of the email. For example, if you want to reflect that the President of the company is sending a personal message to all of their subscribers you can place their name in the “from” field without opening additional accounts.

Ease of Use:  

Setting up your emailing list and other features is very simple to do. Just click on the appropriate tab and the program will walk you through the process. There are also some quick links so you can create your email campaign.

The design of Constant Contact is similar to that of the other products we reviewed. The navigation is at the top of the screen and consists of six different tabs from which to choose. When you are editing your email a box appears that allows you to modify that specific section of the email.

Email Campaign Creation:  

You can effectively create an email using one of the templates or copy and paste your pre-made HTML source code into your email.

Constant Contact had the easiest template editor we reviewed. We found Constant Contact included a wide selection of professional looking templates that would suit most businesses. All selections of the template are clearly labeled and easily modified using the “edit” button. You can import your own images and text directly into the WYSIWYG. They also incorporate a drag and drop feature for each section of your message. 

This bulk email service also includes the ability to add hyperlinks, images, contact details, Amazon and PayPal codes, and special characters. Advanced users you can look at and manipulate web code; however, Constant Contact doesn’t use standard HTML code to design their templates. Instead they use XHTML and CSS (Cascading Style Sheets), another common web design language. If you have no idea how to use CSS we suggest sticking to the WYSIWYG editor.

Constant Contact doesn’t provide the ability to create web forms in the strictest sense of the term; however, they do supply you with the tools to add a “join my mailing list” box to your website. 

We were disappointed to find Constant Contact only provides free image hosting for five images. You can upgrade for an additional fee.

Campaign Reporting:  

Constant Contact provides all the basic necessities you’d need to create a comprehensive report including bounces, bounced percent, complaints, opt-outs, click-throughs, click-through percent, forwards and more.

Missing reports include conversion tracking and email replies.. In the future we would like to see Constant Contact really strengthen their reports section and eventually enable the user to integrate with Google Analytics.

Help/Support:  

Constant Contact includes a comprehensive support center that includes an extensive, searchable knowledgebase; a learning center with tutorials, live demos and scheduled webinars; and if all that doesn’t answer your questions you can contact Constant Contact directly through email or phone. We found the tutorials particularly helpful.

There are few services that will make creating an effective email campaign easier. You really can’t go wrong using Constant Contact, the email designer is a fun and easy-to-use, the wizards make the process painless and if you get stuck there is a plethora of tutorials and help available. However, we really want to see Constant Contact focus on more reporting features.